Problem with Ketarin

[appyface]

@emil.sekula

 

Not sure what is going on but please try this? You must be administrator of PC. Are you using XP, Vista, or ? The below steps usually work on XP. I don't have access to a Vista machine so don't know about that one. I don't know if it will help but it will not hurt anything.

 

Follow all steps exactly and do not do anything inbetween the steps.

 

1. Close ALL running programs (check systray and also task manager and close anything you know did not come with windows). Should have bare desktop now and no systray icons (except clock :-) and no taskbar buttons. No hidden processes running other than normal windows processes.

 

2. Launch Ketarin. It is maximized? (middle button of three in upper right corner shows two overlapping squares)

 

3. Close Ketarin using 'X' in upper right corner.

 

4. Shutdown and reboot your system.

 

5. Let windows come up normally.

 

6. Launch Ketarin. It is maximized? Click on the two overlapping squares. Is it now one square? If it is now one square can you get double-headed arrow on sides and top or diagonal arrow at the corners? If so you can resize window by getting double-headed arrow and click and drag. (Note: If it has one square but the window is filling the screen, it is sometimes hard to get the double-headed arrow. Click the title bar of the window and drag downward and to the right -- or to the left -- this exposes the top and corner and is much easier to get the resizing arrow.)

 

7. Use system as normal.

 

I hope this helps.

 

--appyface

[appyface]

This is too funny. I believe the same thing that happened to emil.sekula just happened to me!

 

I had used Ketarin 0.9.9.22 beta earlier today with no problems. Just now, I launched Ketarin but all that shows is a taskbar button, there is no visible window? I have minimized and/or closed every open window, and I clicked on the Ketarin taskbar button, it depresses as if Ketarin is the window with the focus, but I can see no window at all...

 

I can right-click the taskbar button and choose maximize, and then I have the Ketarin window fully maximized like emil.sekula has reported.

 

If I click on 'restore' (the two overlapping squares on middle button in upper right corner), the Ketarin window disappears to just a taskbar button again. Once 'restored' I do have 'move' and 'size' options available on the right-click menu of the taskbar button. But alas I can find no window to apply them to!

 

So my advice to emil.sekula probably won't work, since I tried that myself and it didn't work.

 

Any ideas how to get the Ketarin window to show itself again without being maximized?

 

Thanks and regards,

--appyface

[appyface]

Eureka! This worked for me!

 

http://csharpaspnet.blogspot.com/2007/08/window-restore-down-goes-hidden.html

 

But it doesn't explain why Ketarin's window suddenly went off/screen or zero size or whatever it was that happened...

 

--appyface

[appyface]

OK double-weird. So now I have the window (very tiny but visible), I used double-headed arrow to resize, the clicked 'updated now' button. Ketarin vanished without a trace. No entry in the event logs, not still running as a process listed in Task Manager.

 

I launched Ketarin again and it has no window unless maximized. I followed the above procedure again to show the tiny window, then exited Ketarin. I relaunched Ketarin and resized the tiny window to my normal size. Then exited Ketarin again.

 

I launched Ketarin yet again and it came up in my correctly sized window. I clicked 'update now' button and Ketarin again disappeared without a trace.

 

One more time. I launched Ketarin and this time it showed with the correctly sized window. However, clicking 'update now' button results again in Ketarin disappearing. So does selecting one entry and pressing CTRL-U -- Ketarin disappears.

 

Help?

--appyface

Edited January 25, 2009 by appyface

[CybTekSol]

@appyface,

I've been following this thread for several days... I'm somewhat perplexed and that takes quite an effort. I was tempted to try to duplicate this, but, forgive me, after reading your last post I think I'm going to pass as I would be crippled without Ketarin as I rely on it to keep over 500 apps current on many PCs. I hope you can find a quick solution to this if you are as 'hooked' on Ketarin as I am!

[CybTekSol]

@appyface,

Try moving Ketarin to a different folder and running it from there... I can only believe that Windows is caching erroneous 'window size and placement' data for Ketarin which may explain why you can't 'get it back' to normal. Backup first, of course! Please post the results.

[appyface]

@CybTekSol

 

I have already posted the window size and placement is solved. Ketarin will not update now, and the process terminates unexpectedly and without warning or error message. There is no message in the event logs.

 

However, I'm not one to turn down a suggestion :-) But before doing that, I rebooted my machine first, and tried Ketarin in it's 'regular' location one more time. The window size is still solved, and I could do an export of all my settings (they look good), but Ketarin would not update, as soon as I click 'update now' or highlight one entry and press 'CTRL-U' the process terminates without error message.

 

So I copied the Ketarin folder to another folder (I have my jobs.db in the same folder with Ketarin, which makes trying new versions or making copies very easy and independent of each other). Then I launched it. The window size is still good. And yes, the copy of Ketarin will update!

 

I can't imagine what Windows is hanging on to, that would be causing the other copy of Ketarin to go down without warning. Maybe Flo can find out.

 

Thanks for the tip of copying the folder. I'll experiment with putting the working folder back to the original location.

 

Best regards,

--appyface

[appyface]

@CybTekSol

 

Well that was fast. I renamed my original Ketarin folder to get it out of the way, then renamed the copied folder (which was working) to the original folder name. Ketarin run from the original foldername will not update and disappears without error message. There is no process left behind that I can see (using Task Manager).

 

I changed the name of the folder slightly, and Ketarin is updating again.

 

This is very strange. Ketarin in that same folder name was working fine earlier today. AFAIK there have not been any changes to my system except pulling the new 0.9.9.22 Ketarin beta. But that was the one that was working earlier!

 

Maybe Flo can find out what is causing Ketarin to terminate without error message. At least I can recreate it, if I keep the same name.

 

@emil.sekula - try renaming the folder that Ketarin is in. And possibly copy your jobs.db file into that folder. See if that fixes it for you?

 

--appyface

[CybTekSol]

@appyface,

What's even more strange about all this is that after I suggested this, I searched the windows registry thoroughly in an attempt to find a key related to this 'window size and placement' for Ketarin that could be changed/deleted to correct the problem and came up empty handed! Weird indeed...

[appyface]

I know, I did the same thing. Even so, I can't imagine what window size/placement errors would have to do with the program terminating on an update attempt?

[CybTekSol]

I can't imagine what window size/placement errors would have to do with the program terminating on an update attempt?

That's why so many people affectionately refer to it as Windoze, I guess!

[appyface]

LOL I bought a little ASUS Eee PC 10" Linux netbook in November. I'm familar with many flavors of Linux, but not the one that came on it -- Xandros.

 

If I didn't know it wasn't windows (or if I didn't do a directory listing, or other command that gives it away) I would have said it was Windows XP.

 

Xandros is reported to be "the best linux desktop for Windows users". And I can believe it, it even hangs once in awhile just like XP :-)

[CybTekSol]

@appyface,

I've been building Linux Boxes for about eight years now... Xandros on a few about 4 years ago. I have come close to divorcing Microsoft several times because Linux has become such an appealing option. Florian threw a kink in my plans with Ketarin... I can't leave windows now! How about it Flo... a Linux version of Ketarin?

[floele]

In theory, you could compile Ketarin with Mono, though I am quite confident that it will not work. Also, you could run Ketarin with .NET and Wine, which I believe does not work either.

 

@Window sizes: They are not saved by Windows, but by Ketarin within the database.

 

@Crash: Could you please check if a re-downloaded beta shows some more information?

[CybTekSol]

In theory, you could compile Ketarin with Mono, though I am quite confident that it will not work. Also, you could run Ketarin with .NET and Wine, which I believe does not work either.

Well that makes it official, I'm sticking with Windows!

 

@Window sizes: They are not saved by Windows, but by Ketarin within the database.

I should have picked up on this because I have to resize Ketarin's windows on my desktop PC when I synch it with my laptop as my laptop is (4x3) and my desktop is (16x9)... Doooooh! Must be that I'm not quite as sharp after a 20 hour day.

[appyface]

@Flo @Crash: Could you please check if a re-downloaded beta shows some more information?

 

OK done. Here's what I got:

 

An unhandled exception occured and Ketarin needs to be closed.

 

System.PlatformNotSupportedException: This operation is only supported on Windows 2000 SP3 or later operating systems.

at Ketarin.Updater.StartNewThread(Object paramJob)

at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state)

at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)

at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart(Object obj)

 

How odd, my system is XP Pro Sp3 (plus everything else m$ update has thrown at it...)

 

Even stranger (to me) is that renaming the directory Ketarin is running from (jobs.db and System.Data.SQLite.DLL also in that directory), prevents this error.

 

Unless that makes sense to you, Flo?

Edited January 25, 2009 by appyface

[floele]

Hm, doesn't make much sense to me yet. Could you possible also tell me those two folder names?

 

Or even better, tell me what the error message shows with this version: http://ketarin.canneverbe.com/downloads/Ketarin/Ketarin-debug.zip

[appyface]

OK, with new version here's the error:

 

An unhandled exception occured and Ketarin needs to be closed.

 

System.PlatformNotSupportedException: This operation is only supported on Windows 2000 SP3 or later operating systems.

at Ketarin.Updater.StartNewThread(Object paramJob) in C:\Users\Administrator\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\Ketarin\Updater.cs:line 414

at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state)

at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)

at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart(Object obj)

 

For folder names, I unzip each new Ketarin into a folder of the same name as the zip file. If I am re-downloading same name (as for 0.9.9.21 and 0.9.9.22 we have had a few re-downloads), I will first rename the older folder of same name to get it 'out of the way' so my latest one can be the name of the zip file.

 

So, for my first time use of 0.9.9.22 I unzipped Ketarin into this folder name:

D:\Program_Files_NOINST\Ketarin-0.9.9.22

 

Then I copied in my jobs.db file from previous 0.9.9.21 folder.

 

I was running Ketarin from this folder when I experienced the 'no visible window' issue. Then, once I 'found' the window and resized it, any attempt to update with CTRL-U or 'update now' button, and Ketarin terminated.

 

At CybTekSol's suggestion to rename, I simply added an 'a' to the end of the folder name:

D:\Program_Files_NOINST\Ketarin-0.9.9.22a

 

Ketarin will update without terminating, from this name. Actually, I have since renamed the folder to many different names of varying lengths and Ketarin will update without terminating. But if I rename the folder back to the original name it had when Ketarin's window size/position became confused, then Ketarin will terminate on attempt to update.